Page 37 of Never Run from an Immortal

Rae choked back a laugh. Leave it to Bax to be jealous. Her attention snagged on Nim’s upturned toolbox, and she reached for it carefully, mindful of any saw blades that might have fallen loose. A few pieces of jewellery had tumbled out, including the ring Rae had made for Nim years ago, recently damaged. It was only a few months ago that her friend had tucked it inside her toolbox to reshape and polish but had never gotten around to it. The ring was spelled, and Rae found herself wishing she’d given Nim a piece imbued with a tracking spell too. Even though it would have crossed so many lines between them.

“No one’s really buying this whole Vampire wife bullshit, are they?” Bax asked when she didn’t reply.

Rae slid the ring into her pocket, closed the lid on the toolbox, and rested it on Nim’s bench. “No one really cares who Vale’s latest human pet is, just like no one cares about any of the other Vampires with pets.” She considered the nature of their agreement, the words they’d uttered to each other in the glasshouse, how Aidan had set up a studio for her in his manor. How it had felt to draw magic from him.

“Except you’re the first pet he’s ever had, Rae.” He slid his PAD across the bench. A photo of her and Aidan outside Cosia flashed up on the screen, their bodies pressed close together, Aidan’s hand fisted in her hair as she held her chin up to him in defiance.

Rae remembered how he’d tucked her in front of him with such ease, the hungry look in his eyes as he’d stared down at her, the thrill it had sent down her spine, and knew she was long overdue for a date with her hand. Straight to Hel, Rae, she told herself. “Spying on me, Bax? Green isn’t really your colour.”

A shrug. “Looking out for you.”

Nobody did anything in Demesia for free. Rae handed back the PAD. “It’s got to be believable, right?” Bax was one of only a handful of people who could identify her. Even most of Omnia wouldn’t recognise her if they passed her on the street, and that was partly why becoming Aidan’s Odalik had been so easy. The other Vampires wouldn’t have had a clue she led Omnia; Bax certainly didn’t. He only thought she was a cadet following orders. What did it matter what the humans knew?

Whoever had broken in, they were looking for the data, that much was obvious. There was nothing else Rae had of value. Which meant Zeke had been compromised. Rae told herself he knew what he’d been getting himself into, that anything could have happened to him at any point prior to their meeting. Couldn’t it?

Baxter hauled a drill back onto the bench, and Rae frowned as she watched him, fixing her hair up into a tight bun with twofiles that had fallen from a toolbox. That thing was seriously fucking heavy—it had taken two fit delivery guys to carry it in—but before she could question him on it, her PAD chimed in her back pocket, and Rae’s eyebrows pinched together in a frown.

Meet at Hardwired. One hour.Reed. Hardwired was the supply store not far from where he’d first met Nim. Rae’s heart thudded in her chest. “Bax. I need a lift.”

“Nim?”

She nodded her response, shoving down the worry and anger. She’d asked Bax to keep an eye out for her friend the moment she’d gone missing. “Her boyfriend.”

“And this?” He waved a hand at the mess surrounding them.

“I’ve got a Vampire husband with deep pockets, remember?”

He shot her a look, but Rae was already heading out the door, all thoughts on Nim. She slid onto the back of Baxter’s motorbike, shaking her head when he handed her his helmet along with the key to Silver Star. “I don’t want anything covered in your sweat touching my skin, thank you.”

“I don’t remember any complaints last time,” he said with a quirk of his lips.

Rae didn’t bite, only pocketed the key. The sun had finally dipped behind the mountains, the Western Quarter illuminated in the soft glow that had first drawn Rae to it as the city lights flickered on one by one. Soon enough, the Vampires would be coming out to play. She glanced over her shoulder at the workshop, wondering if she should ask Baelin to hurry up with the new cameras, but that meant letting him know her exact location.

Instead, she shared a map pin to Bax’s PAD as he started up the engine, sliding an arm around his waist, and trying not to think of the last night with him that had started this way.

“The data?” Rae shouted over the noise, over Bax’s shoulder, wishing she’d taken him up on his offer of a helmet as her eyes streamed from the wind.

“Nothing,” came Baxter’s muffled reply.

They rode in silence as Bax navigated the streets, the bike cutting through busier spots to shorten their journey, and Rae suddenly wished she hadn’t opted for aqua hair with lilac ends that morning.

“Stop here,” she called out, tapping his shoulder. They were three streets away, just outside one of the Fae temples, but Rae wasn’t taking any chances. She ran a hand over her hair, muttering a spell and changing the strands to a light brown before he’d unclipped his helmet and rested it across the handlebars.

He turned back to look at her, blue eyes flicking up to her hair and then back to her face. “Your natural colour?”

“I’ll never tell,” Rae said with a wink, shifting off the bike, but Bax grabbed her wrist.

“Wait,” he said softly, running a thumb over her pulse point. The other he traced lightly over her shoulder. “What if I told you there was more to all of this?”

“More what?” Rae asked, shrugging his hand from her shoulder, earning herself a few glances from the Fae descending the temple steps.

“Everything.”

Rae began to pull away, uninterested in whatever game he was playing tonight. “What are you talking about, Bax?”

He held firm and tugged her closer, wrapping his other arm around her waist. Where this was all coming from, she had no clue. She searched his eyes for any hint that he might be on something before he said, “Come with me. I’ll give you everything you ever dreamed of. More than he can give you.”

This was no drug. This was Bax. Rae pulled out of his embrace. “It isn’t real. You know that.”

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